Study of heat transfer in a horizontal cylinder with fins

The purpose of this paper is to investigate, numerically, the effect of internal fins on the flow pattern, temperature distribution and heat transfer between concentric horizontal cylinders. A Galerkin finite element method is adopted for the discretization of the governing equations. The numerical procedure consists in solving series of transient problems of increasing Ra. Results are presented using air (Pr = 0.7) with Rayleigh numbers ranging from 10³ to 10⁶ for different fin configurations (1 and 2), geometries (sharp, round and divergent tip) and lengths (l = 0.25, 0.5 and 0.75). They are illustrated in terms of isotherms, velocity fields, Nusselt numbers and fin efficiencies. Configuration 2 presents a heat transfer rate 10% above that of configuration 1, at Ra = 10⁶. The heat transfer is about the same for the three geometries, but the best fin efficiency is associated with the fin with a round tip.